S01E06 - The Rhetoric of Disenchantment: Ghost Belief and Secular Critique in Early Twentieth-Century China

This article explores how debates about ghosts became a key battleground in China’s early twentieth-century struggle over modernity. Using a large dataset of historical newspapers and periodicals, the authors analyze how intellectuals argued for and against the existence of ghosts during the Republican era. Reformers often treated ghost belief as superstition and used scientific, psychological, and rational explanations to explain why people believed in spirits. In doing so, they reframed the issue from a question about whether ghosts exist to a question about why people believe in them. The study shows how public debates about ghosts helped advance broader secular critiques of traditional religion and promote a modern, scientific worldview in China.(Citation: Hong, Ze, and Yuqi Chen. 2026. “The Rhetoric of Disenchantment: Ghost Belief and Secular Critique in Early Twentieth-Century China.” Cognitive Science 50(1):e70158. doi:10.1111/cogs.70158.)